Daniel Deronda

"But I dull say no more of this at this time; for this is to be felt and not to be
talked of; and they who never touched it with their fingers may secretly perhaps
laugh at it in their hearts and be never the wiser."--JEREMY TAYLOR.*

The Roman Emperor in the legend put to death ten learned Israelites to avenge
the sale of Joseph by his brethren. And there have always been enough of his
kidney, whose piety lies in punishing, who can see the justice of grudges but not of
gratitude. For you shall never convince the stronger feeling that it hath not the
stronger reason, or incline him who hath no love to believe that there is good
ground for loving. As we may learn from the order of word-making, wherein love
precedeth lovable.

WHEN Deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in the Schuster Strasse at Mainz, and asked for Joseph Kalonymos, he was
presently shown into an inner room where, seated at a table arranging
open letters, was the white-bearded man whom he had seen the year
before in the synagogue at Frankfort. He wore his hat-- it seemed to
be the same old felt hat as before--and near him was a packed
portmanteau with a wrap and overcoat upon it. On seeing Deronda
enter he rose, but did not advance or put out his hand. Looking at him
with small penetrating eyes which glittered like black gems in the midst
of his yellowish face and white hair, he said in German--

"Good! It is now you who seek me, young man."

"Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather's,"
said Deronda, "and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself
much trouble on my account." He spoke without difficulty in that liberal
language* which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom.

Kalonymos now put out his hand and said cordially, "So--you are
no longer angry at being something more than an Englishman?"

"On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me from
remaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the
chest that my grandfather left in trust for me."

"Sit down, sit down," said Kalonymos, in a quick under-tone,
seating himself again, and pointing to a chair near him. Then
deliberately laying aside his hat and showing a head thickly covered
with white hair, he stroked and clutched his beard while he looked
examiningly at the young face before him. The moment wrought
strongly on Deronda's imaginative susceptibility: in the presence of
one linked still in zealous friendship with the grandfather whose hope
had yearned towards him when he was unborn, and who though dead
was yet to speak with him in those written memorials which, says Milton, "contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul

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